Is texting to blame for 2016’s increase in vehicular deaths?

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Early results say US traffic fatalities increased by 3% to as much as 6% in 2016 over 2015. Texting and other smartphone apps are cited frequently by safety officials for the increase. They’re also pointing to the usual suspects, too: seat belts not worn, seat belt laws not enforced, speeding, drunken driving, and legislators unwilling to pass more safe-driving laws.

The size of the increase depends a lot on how you define the numbers. In raw data, National Safety Council data shows an increase of 6% in 2016 over 2015. But if you factor for the growing population and/or the number of miles driven, it’s 3%. When you look at historical trends, the increase is a blip on the chart (below). But no question, traffic deaths are up the last two years.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data through 2015

Historical reduction vs. 2-year increase

NSC chart: motor vehicle deaths since 2000.

The headlines this week stem from from a National Safety Council release declaring 2016 motor vehicle deaths to be the nation’s highest in nine years. By the NSC’s numbers, motor vehicle fatalities in 2014, 2015 and 2016 were 35,398, 37,757, and 40,200, representing a 6% increase 2016 over 2015, and 14% over two years. Those are the headline-grabber numbers.

Statistical researchers say the most accurate way to tabulate traffic fatalities is deaths per 100 million miles traveled or per 100,000 population. The US population has tripled since highway fatalities and miles driven were first calculated in 1920. (The population was 106 million in 1920, 200 million 50 years ago (1967), 257 million 25 years ago (1992), and 326 million in 2017.) Fatalities per 100 million miles driven is considered more accurate than deaths because it reflects fewer miles driven in bad times, more miles driven when the economy grows. The average American drives about 800,000 miles in a lifetime (men about 1 million miles, women about 600,000), so the odds of dying in auto accident are about 1%.

Interestingly, the National Safety Council calculates annual highway deaths about 8% higher than the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, but the percentage increase is more comparable. Part of the difference lies in fatality calculations: NSC includes fatalities off public roads (parking lots, private areas) and for up to 100 versus 30 days after the accidents. In 2015, NSC reported 37,757 fatalities, while NHTSA listed 35,092. NHTSA won’t report 2016 data until the middle of 2017.

Blame texting for the current run-up?

While NSC says the increases in deaths are 6% for one year, 14% for two years, the fairer calculation (deaths per 100 million VMTs, or vehicle miles traveled) is 5% over one year or 9% over the past two years. That’s still significant. The last time there were 5%, one-year increases was in the late 1990s; the last time for 9% two-year increases was in the late 1980s.

Here are some reasons proposed by safety officials for the current increases, and thoughts on the odds this is the cause:

Texting and other smartphone apps. It’s a likely culprit, at least for part of the increase. But: Texting has been around for more than the past two years, and deaths per mile traveled have been flat or down in each of the previous eight years, back to 2007. This supposes Americans got sloppier in their texting habits starting in 2014.

Distracted telephoning. Some research shows that just talking on the phone distracts attention from the road. The National Safety Council has called for a ban on cellphone use by drivers, including hands-free calling and text. But: Same argument as with texting — our habits must have changed starting in 2014. And we’ve always had in-car distractions such as chatty passengers, tuning the radio, lighting cigarettes, and bees flying in open windows.

Lenient seat belt laws. Just 18 “primary offense” states require front and back seat belts be worn, and a car can be pulled over for that offense alone. In 15 states, failure to wear a seat belt is a secondary offense only, meaning you have to be stopped for something else (tail lamp out, speeding) and then the seat belt ticket can be written, too. But: This is an ongoing issue; it’s unlikely many seat-belt users stopped in the past two years.

Speeding. Critics say speed kills. The laws of physics show that a car hits an object more than a third harder at 70 mph than 60 mph. Excess speed is cited in a third of all accidents. Critics also note 1,500 miles of US highways are set at 75 mph or higher; Texas has a couple rural highways with 85 mph limits. But: Accident reports often list multiple causes of an accident. Speed as the primary cause of accidents is a lot less than one-third. A drunk who’s unbelted and goes off a rain-swept 55 mph curved road at 75 mph at night with weak headlamps, worn brakes, and nearly bald tires, there could be a half-dozen causes to the crash.

Not enough cops writing speeding tickets. Safety officials would like to see that or more photo radar cameras. (The opposite of what most motorists want.) But: While some safety officials believe speeding tickets are about safety, most everyone else knows: It’s more about revenue. Cops hate writing tickets. When they stop a car to write a ticket, they might discover a drunken driver. But in that same time, they could have been patrolling 10-20 miles of highway and checked dozens of cars for erratic driving. Also, there’s increasing doubts about the accuracy and fairness of red light cameras and some of that doubt spills over to speed cameras.

The NSC would also like to see more states with mandatory motorcycle helmet laws and more frequent use of ignition interlocks to prevent convicted drunk drivers from driving drunk again.

One solution: more driver assists

You can cure people of bad habits — get them to stop — or you could fight bad habits with technology. A car equipped with adaptive cruise control, forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking, pedestrian detection, and lane departure warning can help. A driver who reads a text might have his or her eyes off the road for a couple seconds; the same person might type for 5-10 seconds without looking up. They shouldn’t be doing it, but obviously many people do that.

With adaptive cruise and lane departure warning, the car responds automatically if you start to drift out of lane (the car beeps and/or brings you back into the lane), and slows down if you get too close to the car in front. This is a partial defense against people who text too much.

Voice texting — reading the message out loud, converting the spoken text reply to words — is safer than texting by hand. Is it somewhat distracting? Possibly, to the extent the driver is a poor multitasker. But overall, it’s safer — at least, less distracting — than writing texts by hand.

As for safety officials’ ongoing demands that the car figure a way to shut off all texting by everyone in the car: It ain’t gonna happen.

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